Joe Orlando
Joe Orlando in the early 1950s
Born(1927-04-04)April 4, 1927
Bari, Italy
DiedDecember 23, 1998(1998-12-23) (aged 71)
Manhattan, New York, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Area(s)Cartoonist, Penciller, Inker, Editor, Colourist
Notable works
Creepy, Mad, DC Comics
AwardsInkpot Award, 1980
Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame, 2007

Joseph Orlando (April 4, 1927 – December 23, 1998)[1] was an Italian-American illustrator, writer, editor and cartoonist during a lengthy career spanning six decades. He was the associate publisher of Mad and the vice president of DC Comics, where he edited numerous titles and ran DC's Special Projects department.

Early life

Orlando was born in Bari, Italy, emigrating to the United States in 1929.[2] He began drawing at an early age, going to art classes at a neighborhood boys' club when he was seven years old. He continued there until he was 14, winning prizes annually in their competitions, including a John Wanamaker bronze medal. In 1941, he began attending the School of Industrial Art (later the High School of Art and Design), where he studied illustration. This school was a breeding ground for a number of comics artists, including Richard Bassford, Sy Barry, Frank Giacoia, Carmine Infantino, Rocke Mastroserio, Alex Toth and future comics letterer Gaspar Saladino. Infantino and Orlando remained close friends for decades.[3] While Orlando was still a student, he drew his first published illustrations, scenes of Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper for a high-school textbook.[1]

After his high school graduation, Orlando entered the U.S. Army and was assigned to the military police, doing stockade guard duty, followed by 18 months in Europe.[1] From Le Havre, France, he was sent to Antwerp, Belgium and then to Germany, where he stenciled boxcars and guarded strategic supplies for the occupation forces.

After his 1947 discharge, he returned to New York and began study at the Art Students League on the GI Bill. He entered the comic book field in 1949 when the packager Lloyd Jacquet assigned him to draw for the Catholic-oriented Treasure Chest. This was a "Chuck White" story that paid nine dollars a page. At the Jacquet Studio he met fellow artist Tex Blaisdell, and the two teamed later on many projects.[1]

Professional career

EC and Mad

In the early 1950s, he was an assistant to Wally Wood on stories for several publishers, including Fox, Youthful, Avon and EC Comics, before becoming a regular staff artist with EC in mid-1951.[4] He was earning $25 a page at EC, and shortly after his first EC stories under his own name were published that year, he married his first wife, Gloria, in September 1951.

After EC, from 1956 to 1959, he drew Classics Illustrated adaptations, including Ben-Hur, A Tale of Two Cities and Rudyard Kipling's Kim.[4] In addition to many contributions to EC's Mad (1960–1969), Orlando also scripted the Little Orphan Annie comic strip beginning in 1964.[5] He did covers for Newsweek and New Times, and his work as an illustrator appeared in National Lampoon, children's books and numerous comic books.[1][6]

Creepy editor

For Warren Publishing's black-and-white horror comics magazine Creepy, debuting in 1964, Orlando was not only an illustrator but also a story editor on early issues. His credit on the first issue masthead read: "Story Ideas: Joe Orlando."[4]

He also worked in toy design, packaging and advertising; sales of Harold von Braunhut's Sea-Monkeys escalated considerably after Orlando drew a series of unusual advertisements visualizing the creatures' enchanted and peaceful undersea kingdom.[7] In 1992, the short-lived live-action television show The Amazing Live Sea Monkeys with Howie Mandel used special effects make-up designs based on the character concepts created by Orlando for his Sea Monkeys illustrations.

DC Comics

This Joe Orlando page with lettering by Todd Klein was created for Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's Watchmen (1987)

In 1966, Orlando and writer E. Nelson Bridwell created the parody superhero team The Inferior Five in Showcase #62 (June 1966).[8] This lighthearted feature would soon receive its own ongoing series. Orlando launched the Swing with Scooter series with writers Barbara Friedlander and Jack Miller in July 1966.[9] After 16 years of freelancing, Orlando was hired in 1968 by DC Comics,[3] where he was the editor of a full line of comic books, including Adventure Comics,[10] All-Star Comics, Anthro, Bat Lash, House of Mystery,[11] Plop!,[12] Swamp Thing, and The Witching Hour,[4] also scripting for several of these titles. Orlando coined the names of the Weird War Tales and Weird Western Tales titles.[13] While serving as DC's vice president, he guided the company's Special Projects department. This included the creation of art for T-shirts and other licensed products, negotiating with such companies as American Greetings and Topps, working with editor Joey Cavalieri on Looney Tunes Magazine[4] and supervising production of trading cards, Six Flags logos, DC character style guides and other items.[1]

In the late 1960s, Orlando hired Filipino artist Tony DeZuniga for work on some of DC's horror titles. In 1971, Orlando and DC publisher Carmine Infantino traveled to the Philippines on a recruiting trip for more artists.[3][14] Alfredo Alcala, Mar Amongo, Steve Gan, Ernie Chan, Alex Niño, Nestor Redondo, and Gerry Talaoc were some of the Filipino komik artists who would work for DC, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s.[1]

During the 1980s, Orlando began teaching at the School of Visual Arts, continuing as an art instructor there for many years.[3]

In 1987, he created an illustration for the supplemental text piece from Watchmen #5, a page from the comic-within-the-comic, Tales of the Black Freighter. Orlando's contribution was designed as if it were a page from the fake title; the conceit being that Orlando had been the artist for a run of stories from the fictional Tales of the Black Freighter comic. Watchmen writer Alan Moore chose Orlando because he felt that if pirate stories were popular in the Watchmen universe, DC editor Julius Schwartz would have lured Orlando into drawing a pirate comic book. The comic-within-a-comic pages were credited to the fictitious artist "Walt Feinberg", and all art attributed to Feinberg was actually drawn by series-artist Dave Gibbons. The Orlando page was the only artwork for the series not by Gibbons.[15]

A limited series featuring The Phantom published by DC in 1988 was written by Peter David and drawn by Orlando and Dennis Janke.[4]

Orlando had a long working association with the prolific letterer Ben Oda, roughing out display lettering effects which Oda would finish. During the 1990s, Orlando was pleased to discover that designer-typographer Rick Spanier, working on a Macintosh computer, could create polished Oda-like finishes of Orlando's roughs. These Orlando-Spanier collaborations were printed in DC's Superman Style Guide and other DC style guides.[1]

Associate publisher of Mad

Wally Wood's drawing of Joe Orlando (left) and Wood collaborating on a comics page in the early 1950s

After the death of Mad founder-publisher William Gaines in 1992, publishing company/owner Time Warner positioned Mad under the purview of fellow-publishing-subsidiary DC Comics. After this shift, Orlando became the magazine's Associate Publisher.[1] Concurrently, he was involved in creating exclusive Mad products for the then-new Warner Brothers Studio Store on Fifth Avenue.

Although he retired from DC in 1996, he nevertheless maintained an office at Mad where he worked on Mad cover concepts and other projects for the next two years. He illustrated four additional articles for publication in Mad with the last appearing in the July 1997 issue.[16] At the time of his death in 1998, he was survived by his wife, Karin, and four children.

Reprints

Orlando's artwork for EC Comics has been reprinted extensively by publisher Russ Cochran. Following the 2006 culmination of Cochran's Complete EC Library reprint series with the EC Picto-Fiction volumes, other EC reprint volumes featuring Orlando illustrations have been published by Steve Geppi's Gemstone Publishing in their EC Archives series.[1]

Awards

He received the Inkpot Award in 1980[17] and was chosen for the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 2007.[18] His contributions to EC's Weird Science earned him a ranking in Entertainment Weekly's "Sci-Fi Top 100".[19] He appeared in a taped segment on Horror Hall of Fame II, telecast October 17, 1991.

Bibliography

DC Comics

EC Comics

Marvel Comics

  • Adventure into Mystery #5 (1957)
  • Astonishing #47, 58, 61 (1956–1957)
  • Battle #47 (1956)
  • Battle Action #22 (1956)
  • Battle Ground #15, 17 (1957)
  • Battlefront #47 (1957)
  • Daredevil #2–4 (1964)
  • G.I. Tales #6 (1957)
  • Journey into Mystery #30, 32, 45 (1956–1957)
  • Journey into Unknown Worlds #44, 57 (1956–1957)
  • Marines at War #6–7 (1957)
  • Marines in Battle #14 (1956)
  • Marvel Tales #149, 151, 157 (1956–1957)
  • My Own Romance #61 (1958)
  • Mystery Tales #51 (1957)
  • Mystic #57, 61 (1957)
  • Mystical Tales #1–2, 7 (1956–1957)
  • Quick-Trigger Western #16 (1957)
  • Ringo Kid #12 (1956)
  • Six-Gun Western #2 (1957)
  • Spellbound #25, 28 (1955–1956)
  • Strange Tales #41, 44, 46, 49, 52 (1955–1956)
  • Strange Tales of the Unusual #2, 7 (1956)
  • Tales of Justice #65–66 (1957)
  • Uncanny Tales #49–50, 53 (1956–1957)
  • War Comics #42 (1956)
  • World of Fantasy #8, 13–14 (1957–1958)
  • World of Mystery #5 (1957)

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "Joe Orlando". Lambiek Comiclopedia. August 16, 2012. Archived from the original on October 30, 2013.
  2. ↑ Jones, William B. Jr. (2011). Classics Illustrated: A Cultural History (2nd ed.). Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. p. 168. ISBN 978-0-7864-3840-2.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Cooke, Jon B. (Spring 1998). "Orlando's Weird Adventures". Comic Book Artist. Raleigh, North Carolina: TwoMorrows Publishing (1). Archived from the original on February 5, 2012.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Joe Orlando at the Grand Comics Database
  5. ↑ Bails, Jerry (2006). "Orlando, Joe". Who's Who of American Comic Books 1928–1999. Archived from the original on February 19, 2012.
  6. ↑ Hinckley, David (January 10, 1999). "DIARY OF A MAD MAN NATIONAL LAMPOONER JOE ORLANDO ILLUSTRATED TRUE COMIC GENIUS". New York Daily News. Retrieved February 2, 2014.
  7. ↑ Walsh, Tim (2005). "Ant Farm and Sea-Monkeys". Timeless Toys: Classic Toys and the Playmakers who Created Them. Kansas City, Missouri: Andrews McMeel Publishing. pp. 124–129. ISBN 978-0-7407-5571-2.
  8. ↑ McAvennie, Michael; Dolan, Hannah, ed. (2010). "1960s". DC Comics Year By Year A Visual Chronicle. London, United Kingdom: Dorling Kindersley. p. 117. ISBN 978-0-7566-6742-9. Writer E. Nelson Bridwell and artist Joe Orlando knew what was in a name when they unleashed the Inferior Five in Megalopolis. {{cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  9. ↑ McAvennie "1960s" in Dolan, p. 118: "DC made a concerted effort to attract the teenage reader. This included turning to lighter-fare with the likes of Scooter...Crafted by writer Barbara Friedlander and editor Jack Miller, with art by Joe Orlando."
  10. ↑ Greenberger, Robert (February 2015). "Orlando's Weird Flashbacks". Back Issue!. Raleigh, North Carolina: TwoMorrows Publishing (78): 10–11.
  11. ↑ McAvennie "1960s" in Dolan, p. 130: "Editor Joe Orlando decided that The House of Mystery was in need of renovation."
  12. ↑ McAvennie "1970s" in Dolan, p. 156: "Edited by Joe Orlando with contributions from comics' finest creators, Plop! was truly 'The Magazine of Weird Humor!'"
  13. ↑ Daniels, Les (1995). DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World's Favorite Comic Book Heroes. New York, New York: Bulfinch Press. p. 153. ISBN 0821220764. 'Carmine Infantino and I found out that the word weird sold well.' [editor Joe] Orlando recalls. 'So DC created Weird War and Weird Western.'
  14. ↑ Duncan, Randy; Smith, Matthew J. (2009). "The Power of Comics: History, Form & Culture". Continuum. Archived from the original on January 3, 2014.
  15. ↑ Stewart, Bhob (July 1987). "Synchronicity and Symmetry". The Comics Journal. Fantagraphics Books (116): 89–95.
  16. ↑ Gilfore, Doug (n.d.). "Mad Magazine Contributors: Joe Orlando". Madcoversite.com. Archived from the original on June 12, 2018.
  17. ↑ "Inkpot Award Winners". Comic Book Awards Almanac. Archived from the original on July 9, 2012.
  18. ↑ "Will Eisner Hall of Fame". San Diego Comic-Con International. 2014. Archived from the original on January 10, 2014.
  19. ↑ Hochman, David (October 16, 1998). "Sci-Fi's Top 100". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on February 2, 2014. Retrieved February 2, 2014. #35 Weird Science (1950-53): This EC Comics title nurtured the fevered brains of countless sci-fi fans; its O. Henry-ish surprise endings antedated The Twilight Zone, and its artwork — especially that of Wally Wood and Joe Orlando — helped form the images we all share of what spaceships, aliens, and the terrain of other planets look like.

Further reading

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